Taembelina
by CinderellaInBoots
Summary: Taemin as Thumbelina!


Chapter 1: Taembelina

Taembelina will begin momentarily, just stay in your seat and eat popcorn and be a bee.

There was once a man who kept pretending to be a woman, his name was Key and he wished for a very little child of his own. His live-in partner, Jonghyun, had left him for a real woman knowing that Key couldn't bear him a child. Because of loneliness Key shaved a part of his hair and dyed it blond. Now, he wanted a child that could make him happy and such but he did not know where he should procure one. So he went to an old witch named Jung Juri and he said,

"I do so very much wish for a little child! Can you tell me where I can get one?"

"Oh! That could easily be managed" said Jung Juri,

"There you have a Bananacorn; that's not of the kind which you can buy in SM Market Merchandise. Put it into a flower-pot and pour Banana Milk on it and you shall see what you shall see."

"Thank you" Key said as he gave Jung Juri a poster of his image and a CD of his latest single for payment.

Key went home and planted the Bananacorn, he poured the Banana Milk and it immediately grew up into a handsome flower which looks like a tulip, but the leaves were tightly closed as though it were still a bud.

"What a pretty flower!" Key observed and he kissed the yellow and red leaves. But as he kissed it, the flower opened with a loud crack.

In the middle of the flower there sat upon the green stamens a little boy that look like a girl. It's delicate and graceful to behold. He was scarcely half a thumb's length in height. Key squealed in delight.

"I'm your umma and I will call you Taembelina!"

'Jonghyun will regret leaving me for a woman!' He thought as he stared at his new agiya.

In daytime, he played upon the table, where Key-umma had put a plate with a wreath of flower around them. Taembelina could also sing and it's so delicate and sweet.

One night when Key was away with his tour in Japan, there came a horrid toad hopping in at the window in which one pane was broken. The toad was known by the name Minho. Minho hopped straight down upon the table where Taembelina lay sleeping under the red rose-leaf.

"That would be a beautiful wife for me!" he said, believing that Taembelina was a female in some weird kind of folk. Minho took the wall-nut shell which Taembelina laid asleep and hopped with it through the window down the garden.

Crickets started to sound.

"Don't speak so loud crickets! Or my future wife will awake" warned Minho,

"She might run away from me yet, she is as light as a bit of swan's down. I will put her out in the brook upon one of the broad water lily leaves. That will be just like an island for her. She can't get away and we live there together."

The water lily that seemed to be the prettiest to Minho's point of view was spotted in the middle of the pond and in there; Minho laid the wall-nut shell where Taembelina was.

The next morning, Taembelina woke up and he began to cry when he saw his surroundings for there was water on every side of the green leaf and he could not get to land at all. Minho went infront of Taembelina.

"I will be your husband and together we will live in the mud." He declared and took the little bed with Taembelina with it. He sat all alone and wept. The Suju fishes in the water saw Taembelina and consider him being pretty and they also felt sorry that he marry a toad and so they decided to help him.

They assembled together in the water around the green stalk which held Taembelina. With the Suju's teeth, they gnawed away the stalk and the leaf swan down the pond. They went away with Taembelina where Minho could not get her.

Taembelina sailed in many places and she met a lot of creatures such as the cockchafers that thought he was pretty but the female cockchafers said he was ugly because he looks like a human. They left him upon a daisy and he wept because he was so ugly that the cockchafers would not have her and yet he was the loveliest little being one could imagine.

The whole summer through poor Taembelina lived quite alone in the great woods. He wore himself a bed out of the blades of grass and hung it up under a large burdock leaf so that he was protected from the rain. Thus summer and autumn passed away but now came winter, the cold long winter. It began to snow and every snow flake that fell upon him was like a whole shoves-full thrown upon one of us, for we are tall and he was only an inch long.

Taembelina arrived at the door of Kyuhyun, the field mouse.

"You poor little creature" Kyuhyun said. "Come into my warm room and dine with me"

As Kyuhyun was pleased with Taembelina, he said.

"If you like you may stay with me through the winter but you must keep my room clean and neat and tell stories, for I am very fond of them."

Taembelina did as the kind old field mouse bade him.

"Now, we shall have a visitor" Kyuhun began. "My neighbor is in the habit of visiting me once a week. He is better off than I am. If you could only get him for your husband, you would be well-provided for but... he cannot see at all!"

Taembelina paid no heed at that for the neighbor was a mole. The field mouse called him Nickhun. A short time before, Nickhun dug a long passage through the earth from his own house to theirs but begged them not to be afraid of the dead chicken which was lying on the passage. It certainly must have died only a short time before the winter began.

Taembelina, Nickhun and Kyuhyun went in the passage and came where the chicken lay. Nickhun thrust up his broad nose against the ceiling and pushed the earth, so that a great hole was made, through which daylight could shine down. In the middle of the floor there lay a dead chicken, his beautiful wings pressed against his sides. Taembelina said nothing but he felt sorry for the poor chicken. When the 2 others turned their backs at them, he bent down and kissed the chicken upon his closed eyes.

It was night and Taembelina could not sleep at all so he got up and wove a great carpet of hay. He carried it and spread it over the dead chicken. He laid his head on the chicken's breast but at once was greatly startled for it felt as if something was beating inside there.

That was the chicken's heart.

The chicken was not dead, he was only lying there torpid with cold but he had been warmed, and came to life again.

The next night, Taembelina crept out to him again and now he was alive but quite weak. He could only open his eyes and look at Taembelina for a moment that brought a decayed wood on his hand.

"I thank you, you little pretty child" said the sick chicken, "I have been famously warmed. Soon I shall get my strength and come back to poultry again."

"Oh" Taembelina said, "It's so cold. Stay in your warm bed and I will nurse you. I am Taembelina by the way, what is your name Mr. Chicken?"

"My owner called me Onew."

The whole winter Onew remained there and Taembelina nursed and tended him heartily. Neither Kyuhyun nor Nickhun heard anything about it for they did not like Onew.

So soon as the spring came, Onew bade Taembelina a farewell, he asked if he would go with him, he could sit upon his back and they would go in the poultry house. But Taembelina knew that Kyuhyun would grieve if he would leave him.

"Farewell! You good pretty girl!" said Onew.

"Farewell Onew! But I am not a girl!" he called back yet Onew didn't heard the last of it for he already flew.

Again summer came and Nickhun proposed to Taembelina, still thinking that he was a girl. However, he was not glad about it at all for he did not like the tiresome Mole.

"Tomorrow you shall celebrate your wedding!" Kyuhyun said. Nevertheless Taembelina wept and declared he would not have the irksome mole.

"Nonsense!" the field mouse exclaimed. "Don't be obstinate or I'll bite you with my white teeth. Nickhun is a very fine mole whom you will marry. Be thankful for your good fortune."

Now, the wedding was to be held. The mole Nickhun had already come to fetch Taembelina, he was to live with him deep under the earth and never to come out into the warm sunshine for Nickhun did not like it. The poor little thing was very sorrowful, he was about to give his farewell to the sunshine when he heard chirpings. He looked up and saw Onew, who was flying by. Taembelina told him how loath he was to have the ugly mole for his husband and that was to live under the earth, where the sun never shone.

Onew, for the second time asked him if he wanted to go with him.

"Yes, I'll go with you!"

Taembelina seated himself on the chicken's back and they flew not that high for Onew was just a chicken and not a swallow. At last they came to the warm countries, Onew had already run away from the poultry house because he was threatened to be cooked. The two of them were now inside a glorious forest with a lot of pretty wild flowers bloomed.

Onew laid him in one of the broad leaves but to Taembelina's greatest surprise, there sat a little girl in the midst of the flower, as white and transparent as it she had been made of glass. She wore the daintiest of gold crowns on her head and the brightest wings on her shoulder. She herself was not bigger than Taembelina.

Onew looked around and each of the wild flowers dwelt such a little man and woman, but this one was their queen.

"OMO! How beautiful she is..." Taembelina whispered to Onew.

The little queen was known as Rinhyo and she was frightened at Onew for it was quite a gigantic bird for her. But when she saw Taembelina, she became very glad and her heart fluttered. He was the most handsome of all being she ever laid eyes on. Therefore she took her crown and put it on Taembelina's head, asked for his name and if he could be her husband and he would be the king of all the flowers. Now, this was truly a different kind of being to the toad Minho and to the mole Nickhun who asked his hand. This is a girl and she knew that Taembelina was a boy.

"Yes!" Taembelina said to the charming queen in front of him.

"You shall not be called Taembelina!" said Rinhyo. "That is an ugly name and you are too fair for it. At this instant, we will call you Taemin."

"Taemin? Thank you... It suits me well for I am a boy and not a girl" The newly renamed Taemin replied.

"Farewell! Farewell!" Onew said and he flew not so high from the warm countries, far away back to another farm house. There he had met his new owner. A girl who likes chicken very much and she took care of Onew. Onew was now a pet and would never be eaten.

CLUCK CLUCK

Onew said.

The End.

Annyeong! What a cute chicken. Reviews are loved.

-Cinderella In Boots. 


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